


The Heart is Hard to Translate

by Fever_of_Stingrays



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: F/F, Owen is Useless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:54:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27403090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fever_of_Stingrays/pseuds/Fever_of_Stingrays
Summary: It's not about Owen.A rewrite of the last scene in of S6E11: "Blink."
Relationships: Teddy Altman/Cristina Yang
Comments: 8
Kudos: 78





	The Heart is Hard to Translate

Teddy needs to get to her car before Cristina finds her. If she can make it to her car, she can get away from Owen and the way her memories of the desert cling to him like smoke. Away from Cristina. Away from Cristina looking up at her, laser focused, adoring.   


She makes it outside before she hears hurried footsteps behind her. The lingering puddles on the pavement are wet and glistening, the night air is humid and cool. Teddy takes a deep breath and keep walking, her car a lurking shadow just a few paces away.  


Teddy can hear Cristina calling her name, but she doesn’t look back. She cannot look at her and not tell her the truth: that Cristina’s brilliance and fire, and—God help her— arrogance, has made Teddy feel things she has not felt for a long time. Things she wasn’t sure she could feel anymore, not after Alison, after sleepless nights and panic attacks. Cristina has rattled something inside her, but Teddy is older now, wiser. She knows it will be easier to be the one who leaves first. She will not be abandoned again. 

Cristina catches up to her, she takes deep, desperate gulps of air as she offers to talk to the Chief, more money, services for veterans, anything she can think of. Teddy tries to brush her off, tries to tell her it’s not about the job or the money, but Cristina is in front of her now, her voice is high and thin, then it breaks and Teddy can’t breathe.

“You believe in me more than I do and I need that. I….I am gonna die here without that.”

Teddy closes her eyes; shoves the feelings down. She mumbles that it’s complicated, tries to skirt the issue, but Cristina Yang does not give up without a fight, she keeps pushing and pushing so Teddy grabs for something, anything, that won’t give her away.

“I want Owen,” she says, too fast, unthinking. It’s close enough to the truth that the tears in her eyes are real.

“Fine! Done. Take him.” Cristina says it just as fast, just as unthinking.

Teddy stares at her, eyes wide. Cristina takes in her own words, shocked by her response, shocked by how fast it came, how easily. She means it though, and when she meets Teddy’s eye again, defiant and sure of herself, Teddy feels a jolt desire run up her spine. It unsettles her, it gets her moving again, treading a shaky path to her car.

Cristina follows silently, but her words rattle in the spaces between them. 

_ Fine. Done. Take him. _

When she reaches her car, Teddy rests her forehead against the window, the wet  glass cool against her skin.  Cristina Yang will not give up without a fight, so she reaches out and wraps her strong fingers around Teddy’s wrist. It  startles Teddy, she turns around, schools her face into impassivity, trying not to give herself away, ignoring how Cristina's closeness makes her heart hammer in her chest.   


“I didn’t mean…” Cristina starts, but Teddy cuts her off, a wild, helpless laugh erupts from her chest.

“Yes you did. God, Yang. Of course you did.”

“This is not about Owen. What he and I have…” Cristina trails off like she isn’t sure what she wants to say, but she tightens her jaw and continues, her voice low and urgent. “It’s not enough to give this up. To give  _ you _ up. I’ve done this before, I’ve made myself smaller, made myself into a person I didn’t like or respect just to make someone else happy and I can’t do it again, Teddy. I _will not_ do it again. This is  not about Owen.” 

Teddy breath spirals out into the cool air as she sighs and tries to pull her arm away. “It’s about surgery. Of course.” 

She should leave, she should get in her car and close the door and drive and drive and drive. Cristina's fingers are still tight around Teddy’s wrist, rooting her to the spot where she stands.  


"It’s about  _ you. _ ” Cristina says simply. As if it’s obvious. As if she can’t separate her need to hold a heart in her hands from her need for Teddy. 

“It is not about me Cristina, stop it. I am not a toy for you and Owen to squabble over. I won’t sit here and watch you pick surgery over him and watch him start to hate you for it, I won’t watch him lose another relationship. I won't watch him get hurt again.” 

Teddy has to leave because if she doesn’t, she will do something reckless. She is so close, she already can't stop thinking about pulling Cristina into an on call room, she can't stop touching Cristina— on the shoulder, a gentle hand on her lower back as they walk into the scrub room. Teddy is close to doing something she will regret, and she cannot bear the idea of hurting Owen. She will not be the reason he loses someone else. 

“That’s not what this is about.” Cristina says quietly. 

Teddy feels her pulse leap under Cristina’s thumb. Her breath is unsteady as she wrenches her wrist away.

“Yes it is, he’s been my best friend for years, and I —” Teddy’s protests die in her throat as Cristina steps closer. Teddy is trapped, pressed up against the car, remnants of rain seeping into her coat, her hair, her skin. 

“You don’t want him.” Cristina looks up at Teddy with the same confidence she walks into the OR with. 

Teddy blinks before responding. “Yes I do. Of course I do.” 

Cristina Yang is _ smirking _ at her. Cristina Yang doesn’t give up. “Do you?” 

Teddy doesn’t want to admit defeat but Cristina is crowding her space, crowding her thoughts with those eyes, all that impossible hair. Teddy shakes her head, wheat colored hair shifting on her shoulders as she whispers “No.” 

“No.” Cristina's dark eyes are glittering with satisfaction and she moves closer, she is much too close, her hair smells like sandalwood and cedar.

“Cristina, I can’t—” Teddy exhales. 

Cristina just tilts her head up, an offering.

It shatters Teddy’s resolve, it makes her forget about Owen, it makes her forget where she is, it damn near makes her forget her own name. She slides a hand under that mass of dark curls, the other wraps around Cristina’s hip. 

“I am not giving you up,” Cristina’s voice is steady. Certain.

“Don’t.” Teddy says, tracing her thumb over Cristina’s bottom lip as fire climbs up her spine. “Please.”

It’s not surprising that Cristina kisses like she operates, with perfect technique, deadly precision. What’s surprising is the passion underneath, raw and desperate and searing. It feels like Teddy is opening her mouth to taste the sun itself. It feels like snow in a desert. 

It feels like holding a heart in her hands. 


End file.
